BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers & Company, scientist David Suzuki on capitalism and climate change.

DAVID SUZUKI: The fossil fuel industry knows that fossil fuel use is at the heart of climate change, but the problem is their job as CEOs and executives is to make money for their shareholders, and they’ll do it.

ANNOUNCER: Funding is provided by:

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Carnegie Corporation of New York, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security at Carnegie.org.

The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. Last week, the scientist David Suzuki was here to tell us what he thinks should happen to politicians who ignore or deny evidence that the earth is heating up:

DAVID SUZUKI: Our politicians should be thrown in the slammer for willful blindness. If we are in a position of being able to act, and we see something going on and we refuse to acknowledge the threat or act on it, we can be taken to court for willful blindness. I think that we are being willfully blind to the consequences for our children and grandchildren. It’s an intergenerational crime.

BILL MOYERS: The problem is, if that should happen, if politicians were to be convicted of willful blindness to the fate of the earth and future generations, there would have to be mass arrests and lots more funding for new prisons. We’re not talking about a mere handful of culprits, it’s hard even to know where to start.

Perhaps with Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida. Back when he was a state legislator, Rubio favored cutting carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. But now he’s thinking about running for president in 2016 and has changed his tune, as ABC’s Jonathan Karl learned this past weekend:

MARCO RUBIO on ABC News A Closer Look: I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I do not. And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except, it will destroy our economy.

BILL MOYERS: As Paul Waldman wrote in “The Washington Post” this week, just about every potential candidate yearning for the Republican nomination publicly questions the scientific evidence of global warming. Among them:

Ted Cruz, who says “The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming.”

And Rand Paul says “the Earth’s 4.5 billion years old…and you’re going to say we had four hurricanes and so that proves a theory?”

These contenders have plenty of company, including the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of coal-rich Kentucky, who says he doesn’t buy climate change and regularly scorns President Obama for talking “about the weather.”

Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher says global warming is “a total fraud,” and he’s from California, where every inch of the state is under siege from epic heat and drought.

Then there’s Representative Joe Barton, former GOP chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who hails from Texas, which, the story goes, was created in only one day by the Almighty who spent the rest of the week drilling for oil. Smokey Joe Barton says that Noah’s “Great Flood is an example of climate change, and that certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

I’m not making this up. They really say these things. But they’re not actually stupid. Playing dumb is just their game, to appease the base of Tea Party Republicans who watch only Fox News and don’t really know better, and, of course, to keep the campaign contributions rolling in from the fossil fuel companies and predatory billionaires. But haul these fellows up on charges of willful blindness, and I’ll wager they would all take the Fifth.

No one knows the ways politicians undermine action to stop global warming better than David Suzuki. This geneticist and zoologist, author, and broadcaster is known to many as the godfather of the environmental movement.

DAVID SUZUKI in The Nature of Things: This is “The Nature of Things.”

BILL MOYERS: Since 1979, he has hosted the Canadian TV series “The Nature of Things,” making science understandable and entertaining to audiences around the world. In his native Canada he’s fought hard against those science deniers in positions of power who have turned a blind eye to the future and the truth. Welcome back, David.

DAVID SUZUKI: Thank you, it’s good to be here.

BILL MOYERS: You once believed that if people were showed the valid science about global warming, they would understand. You were wrong about that. It's not the case that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

DAVID SUZUKI: Yes, the discussion platform has been very, very badly polluted. I really did believe, and my whole life, I had, did my first television series in 1962 when even you were a young man too. And my belief was and still is that if we can have a conversation about the facts, that ultimately we can make the proper decisions.

Well, it's a much more complicated affair. And what I'm realizing now is that as long as we carry on the conversation within a frame that is dictated by economics, then we’re going to lose every time. And again, let me tell you a story. I, many years ago the Lytton Indian Band, they call themselves, came to me and said, our government has given a permit to log our sacred valley. The sacred valley's now called the Stein Valley. They gave a permit to Fletcher Challenge, a New Zealand forest company. And we don't want any logging to take place.

So I said, okay, but before I work with you, I'd like to see what you're fighting to protect. So I took my family, we went camping in the valley for five days. And it's a magnificent valley. So as we were coming out, we met a big party of people. And the women were all dressed in high heels and dresses and the men in suits and ties. And I said, this is not a camping party.

But you know, anybody on the trail you talk to. And so very quickly I realized, holy smokes, this is the CEO of Fletcher Challenge. And very quickly he realized, oh my God, this is that troublemaker David Suzuki. And so we got into, let's say a heated discussion. And finally he said in frustration, listen Suzuki, are tree-huggers like you willing to pay to protect those trees? Because if you're not willing to pay for them, they don't have any value until someone cuts them down.

And that was a big insight for me because I realized, holy cow, you know, you, it's, he's absolutely right. In his world he could tell me how many jobs will come, how many board feet of lumber, how many cubic meters of pulp, how much profit can be made out of there.

And what do I do? If I'm arguing in his frame and say, well, gee, you, every year we can pick a few berries and there are some salal bushes that we could use for flower arrangements and maybe, maybe we could find a cure for-- like, we have no chance against that argument if we stay within an economic frame.

Because the real reason we're fighting for the forest is that it's taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting oxygen back in it. Not a bad service for an animal like us. But economists don't have a place for that in their construct.

BILL MOYERS: Well, how would you expect otherwise, when as you point out, the fossil fuel industry has deliberately embarked on a program to cast doubt on the science of global warming? They say you and others like you are practicing junk science. And they are winning the propaganda.

DAVID SUZUKI: In the United States.

BILL MOYERS: In the United States.

DAVID SUZUKI: Yes. That has worked. What we do know from the magnificent book, "Merchants of Doubt."

BILL MOYERS: "Merchants of Doubt."

DAVID SUZUKI: You sow doubt. Since the 1990s the fossil fuel industry has known just as the tobacco industry knew years before they finally admitted it, that smoking caused cancer, the fossil fuel industry knows that fossil fuel use is at the heart of climate change.

But now the problem is their job as CEOs and executives is to make money for their shareholders, and they'll do it. And if they begin to frame the discussion a different way, the chances are they'll be booted out of their position. So they've got no choice.

BILL MOYERS: The paradox as you speak is that I saw a poll that said almost 90 percent of Canadians really take global warming seriously and know that we contribute to it. And yet their government is taking actions that are in direct contradiction to their understanding of global warming.

DAVID SUZUKI: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: The citizens understand.

DAVID SUZUKI: Our government has come down hard. So environmentalists are called enemies of Canada--

BILL MOYERS: By the prime minister?

DAVID SUZUKI: By the prime minister, well, his mouthpieces, his various ministers. We are called radical extremists. We have one minister who said you have these extremist terrorists like Bin Laden, and environmentalists. So that's how we're being demonized by being lumped in as terrorists.

DAVID SUZUKI: And this is a very effective thing that we know that it's been done by the tobacco industry, it was done by, it's being done by the fossil fuel industry. If you attack a person on the basis of their trustworthiness, their ulterior motives, anything to get away from dealing with what the issues they're raising.

Then, oh, but those darn scientists, they keep speaking out. So shut them down. We have fired a huge number of scientists working for Environment Canada.

BILL MOYERS: Well, I did read that the government, your government has closed libraries in the Department of Oceans and--

DAVID SUZUKI: Fisheries and oceans.

BILL MOYERS: --Fisheries and Oceans in--

DAVID SUZUKI: That's right. Actually thrown out manuscripts into the garbage.

BILL MOYERS: That’s like the burning of books.

DAVID SUZUKI: --exactly, exactly. And they've muzzled the scientists that work for the government. Scientists cannot go out and talk to the public about what they are finding in their area of expertise. They have to go through the government and be vetted by the government in terms of what they can say.

DAVID SUZUKI: That really sends a chill through the scientific community. Because other scientists who aren't working for government but are in universities depend on government grants in order to carry out their research, much more cautious in speaking out.

It sends a chill. And that really scares me because if you can't have scientists telling you what the grounds, the scientific information is on various issues, who then do we go to for the authority? Do we go to the Bible? Do we go to the Koran? Do we go to these rightwing think tanks? In Canada we have the Fraser Institute, the very rightwing think tank that gets a lot of play in the press. Is that what our source is going to be?

That's why it's really important to me that scientists not only be freed but be recognized as the most authoritative source of information on these various issues.

BILL MOYERS: There was a Gallup poll in this country a few weeks ago that said despite rising temperatures and all of this strange weather we've been having, the percentage of Americans who care a great deal about global warming has been dropping from 41 percent six years ago to 34 percent today. What is it about human nature that wants to believe the worst can't happen?

DAVID SUZUKI: I don't know. I don't know. But I will tell you this. We think, or at least the science indicates, humans evolved, and I know in the United States the word evolution is loaded with all kinds of triggers, but in Canada we use evolution all the time because people accept it.

The science suggests we evolved in Africa 150,000 years ago. And for 95 percent of our existence we were nomadic hunter-gatherers. We had to follow plants and animals through the seasons. When you're a hunter-gatherer, you know darned well you are utterly dependent on nature for your wellbeing and survival.

10,000 years ago, we begin this big transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer. Agricultural revolution ushers in this huge change. Now we don't have to follow. We can raise our food right where we live. And in 1900, there were about 1.5 billion people in the world, only 14 cities with more than a million people. Most people still lived, and if you look at a map of the United States in 1900, the Midwest is dotted with all kinds of towns and villages, 150, 200 people. Those were the way that people lived.

We lived in rural village communities because most people were involved in some aspect of agriculture. Come ahead a hundred years to 2000. Now there are four times as many people, 6 billion people, more than 400 cities with a million people or more. Now in North America, the vast majority of people live in big cities.

And in a big city it's easy to think, well, as long as we have parks out there somewhere where we can camp and fish and play, who needs nature? In, you know, in a city my most highest priority is my job. And you know, the average child in Canada today spends eight minutes a day outside and over six hours a day in front of a television, computer or a cell phone screen. So when you're living that way, who needs nature? Who even worries about the weather unless there's a tornado or some kind of a freak event?

And so we act as if these things are really not relevant to the way we live. I remember when William Nordhaus, one of the giants in economics at Yale said, the impact of global warming is trivial economically. And I think that it's--

BILL MOYERS: We now know that's not the case.

DAVID SUZUKI: Of course, of course. See, young kids often ask me, Mr. Suzuki how can I save the world? And I say to them, well, look, the world's not in trouble. We're in trouble, but the world's not in trouble. So don't worry about the world.

But if you want to look to the future, environmentalism isn't a discipline or a specialty like being a dentist or an artist or a musician. Environmentalism is a way of seeing our place in the world and seeing our relationship with the biosphere. And we need everybody to see the world that way. So I tell young kids, follow your heart, but whatever your activity is, if you're a dancer or a musician or an athlete, see the world that your activity is made possible by good old Mother Nature, and treat her with more respect.

BILL MOYERS: So you say the world's not in trouble. But when I read some of what you've written and when I look at photographs and video of the tar sands, seems to me the world's in serious trouble--

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, the world--

BILL MOYERS: --and you have a microcosm of it.

DAVID SUZUKI: The world, the planet is undergoing immense changes. Humans now are the major force shaping the properties and the functions within the biosphere. That's why scientists refer to this as the Anthropocene epoch, a period of time when human beings have become a geological force. We're altering the physical, chemical and biological features of the planet on a geological scale.

So there's no question the planet's undergoing change. But the planet is going to be here long after we're gone. The planet will continue to go on in this altered state. I have no doubt life will persist. We've gone through periods of tremendous extinction. There are five great extinction events that happened. We don't know why, but one of them when the dinosaurs disappear may have been caused by this collision with an asteroid and a cooling period. But the reality is it takes 10 to 20 million years for life to recover after one of these great extinction crises. And I don't know if you've interviewed Elizabeth Kolbert who's just--

BILL MOYERS: Read her book.

DAVID SUZUKI: --written a book, "The Sixth Extinction." And there's no question that we're in a new extinction phase. But now it's being caused by one species alone which is us. Life will go on. Even if we heat up the planet to what is being projected as 4 to 6 degrees this century, which to me is unimaginable, life I'm sure will persist but in a radically different form.

BILL MOYERS: So tell me, the series that you've hosted for over 30 years now called “The Nature of Things,” can you boil down to a few sentences here at the end what you've learned about the nature of things? Can you give me a nugget of experience we can pass on--

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, I--

BILL MOYERS: --to the audience?

DAVID SUZUKI: --I don't know about the experience through television. Of course it has given me the opportunity to meet so many amazing people. But the most important person I didn't, I never met, but she had as great an influence on my life as anybody I've known was Rachel Carson.

Rachel Carson in 1962 published Silent Spring. And I was a hotshot geneticist then. I'd spent eight years in the United States getting my education and I was going to be this hotshot in Canada. And I read this book and it just changed my life. And it, what it said is the lab is not the real world.

You know, you can do all kinds of experiments in a test tube or in a growth chamber. But in the real world the wind blows, sun sets, night falls, it rains, all kinds of things happen that you don't get in a controlled chamber. That's point one. And the second point is in nature everything's connected to everything else.

What we do when we look at the world through science or even through the media is we isolate and we look at little segments as if they're not interconnected. And those, that was really the important message to me. The lab is not a miniature replica of the real world. It's an artifact in a way. And everything in the world is connected, so everything carries responsibilities.

BILL MOYERS: Three years ago, you said you would likely die before your children became mature adults and have their own children. But you said you were filled with hope to imagine their future, and I'm quoting, rich in opportunity, beauty, wonder and companionship with the rest of creation. As the climate crisis has worsened over the last three years, what has happened to your hope?

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, a lot of my colleagues have now said it's too late. Clive Hamilton, an eminent eco-philosopher in Australia wrote a book, “Requiem for a Species.” And we're the species it's a requiem for. I've read everything, the entire book, and there's nothing I disagree with there. James Lovelock, the man who invented this idea of Gaia, says 90 percent of humanity will be gone by the end of the century.

And Sir Martin Rees, the royal astronomer in Britain was asked what are the chances humans will be around by 2100, and he said 50/50. So there are a lot of my colleagues are saying we've passed too many tipping points to go back. My answer is thank you for the message of urgency. We don't know enough to say it's too late.

And this isn't some kind of Pollyannaish idea. I base that notion of our ignorance on reality. In, the most prized species of salmon in the world is the sockeye salmon. It's got that bright red fatty flesh that we all love. And the largest sockeye salmon run in the world is in Canada in the Fraser River.

We like a run of about 20 to 35 million salmon is a good run, that's a lot of fish. And in nineteen, sorry, in the year 2009, just over a million sockeye came back to the Fraser. And I said to my wife, that's it. There isn't enough biomass to get them to, they're going extinct. A year later, and we, the government set up a royal commission to look into what the heck happened to the sockeye salmon.

A year later, we got the biggest run of sockeye in a hundred years. Now, I like to cite this not to show how stupid I am. Nobody knows what happened. But nature surprised us. And I believe that nature has many more surprises if we can pull back and give her room. And that's the basis of my hope. And that's all I'm left with. I see where the curves are all going. But I still cling to hope as the thing that we've got to grab onto if we give nature a chance.

BILL MOYERS: So what if our species is not the apex of creation? Are we assuming that the very species that can pollute and destroy our habitat is the one worthy most of saving?

DAVID SUZUKI: I definitely do not believe that at all. It's, life is the miracle on this planet. UNEP, the United Nations Environment Program say over 50,000 species, and there are big ones and small ones going extinct. And I grieve for them, I grieve for my kin, the other species that occupy this planet. I certainly don't regard us as the apex. But I love my children. And that's what drives me is that I want my children and grandchildren to live in a world where they can have the joy of being alive and human. And I will fight for that.

Now, at this point at the end of our show and at this, towards the end of my life, one of the great gifts that I got was one, you know, I used to spend so much time going, we got to finish this project, like, we've got to get going. Like, we don't have time, we, and my family paid the price. I was at the office long hours and traveling.

And one day I looked in the mirror and I said, who the hell do you think you are? There are 7 billion people on the planet. You think you're so important? Of course you're not. The only way this change is going happen is when there is a body of people working together, a lot of drops will fill any bucket.

And your, it's not your responsibility. It's your conceit to think you're so special you've got to do it. And that relieved me of a tremendous amount of pressure on my part. All I want is to be able to say to my grandchildren, I did the best I could. I'm one human being, that's all. And if there are enough people like that, something big could happen, I think.

BILL MOYERS: David Suzuki, thank you very much for being with me.

DAVID SUZUKI: Thank you for having me.

BILL MOYERS: At our website, BillMoyers.com, we debunk some of the biggest lies of the climate change deniers and ask environmental scientists and activists what could be done right now to fight global warming.

That’s all at BillMoyers.com. I’ll see you there and I’ll see you here, next time.

Guests

Full Show: The War on Climate Scientists

May 16, 2014

Climate change is increasingly making mainstream media headlines and this week was no exception.

On Tuesday, scientists said that the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what they believe will be a centuries-long, irreversible process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet.

News reports like this show that climate change is serious, but corporations and even some governments seem recklessly determined to minimize or deny the reality of global warming, as well as undermine the authority of scientists.

In the second part of his conversation with Bill, Canadian scientist and environmental activist David Suzuki says killing the messenger is a 50-year-0ld strategy ripped straight from big tobacco’s playbook.

“This is a very effective thing that we know has been done by the tobacco industry [and] it’s being done by the fossil fuel industry… You attack a person on the basis of their trustworthiness, their ulterior motives, anything to get away from dealing with the issues”

For Suzuki, it’s a tactic he’s personally confronted as a result of his outspoken views on climate change and government collusion with the petrochemical industry. Although he’s considered Canada’s most admired figure, Suzuki has been the target of relentless attacks from his nation’s prime minister, corporations and right-wing ideologues.

“The fossil fuel industry knows that fossil fuel use is at the heart of climate change,” Suzuki says. “But the problem is their job as CEOs and executives is to make money for their shareholders, and they’ll do it.”

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Suzuki’s story about the salmon runs in the Fraser River reminded me of what scientists claimed right have Mt. St. Helen’s blew 1/2 her top off and desolated the area around her: that life would take centuries to return. However, miracle upon miracle! Within a decade trees and shrubs were growing, and soon animals moved back into the areas most damaged by the blast. Suzuki’s right in saying we don’t know enough to be able to predict how Nature will respond and how she can adapt. However, he also says we need to pull back and give her space to operate. And that’s what happened in the St. Helen’s area. Everyone pulled back. The area was left alone (for the most part)–mostly because of the dangers of further eruptions at first, later because there was no way to log the felled trees without damaging equipment with the mountains of ash. But, leaving the area virtually alone for the better part of a decade enabled Nature to do her job and although the area is not the same as it was, it is thriving once more within my lifetime. The question is: Will we give Nature that chance? Or will we just keep chugging ahead without regard to anything or any creature but ourselves?

MrM3000

Look at Chernobyl. After a man-made disaster forced the area to be abandoned wildlife has returned and vegetation has taken over in a mere two decades, radioactive though it is. However, ‘m afraid the largest human-caused disaster of all is still in the making, and it will likely take nature much longer to recuperate in the aftermath. Suzuki is right when he says the planet is not in trouble, we’re in trouble.

Anonymous

For everyone out there waxing smug about how enlightened you are compared to those evil so-called “deniers,” how many of you are willing to put your convictions into play, for real? How many are willing to do what apparently we’re hearing is necessary (I mean, humanity is dead in 100 years, according to Susuki & Co.) to save the planet and humanity?

Tomorrow, to test your conviction on the dire necessity of fixing things, start by giving up hot showers. It’s the weekend so it should make it a little easier to transition. Vow never to drive that car (gas or electric) again from here on out. Doesn’t matter, whatever type of car it is, it’s a big part of your carbon footprint. Dump it.

For the next one, thank goodness summer is on the way here in the good ‘ol USofA, because getting rid of your gas or fuel furnace is next on the list. Sell it for scrap. You’ll miss it, but given how important you believe reversing CO2 and warming is, you’ll endure. For those of you in the southern climes, central air running in your home is like using a megaphone to admit you’re a denier. Dump it, too. Open the windows. And forget the low-tech fan; that uses electricity, which these days is generated by coal in most industrialized nations, including the US, or natural gas, and we all know what a disaster those things are. Oh, … Planning any trips? By plane? By car? By train? You know the drill.

There. Now have at it. You can’t just expect everyone else to do these things, especially at first, but given the threat that faces us, it has to start somewhere and it might as well be you. It’s a start.

Have at it.

Mark G.

Suzuki immediately compares the fossil fuels industry, which has allowed mankind to reach for the stars and put a man on the moon and given us flight and motor vehicles and agriculture and freed animals from the drudgery of the harness and hard labour , to tobacco, which has brought no good at all. So right there you can see he is trying to pull one over on us. Then he goes on the state untrue things about the current Conservative government. Suzuki himself lives in a multi-million dollar home and has other homes. He also jet sets around the world. I stopped watching his program “the nature of things” years ago when I found him not exactly telling the truth about things on one of his shows. And the man suffers from “catastrophic thinking” where everything is a disaster waiting to happen. On one show he had, I lost track of the number of times he used frightening adjectives to describe how our world was ending. He is for all intents and purposes, the leader of a doomsday cult.

Pam Driscoll

The auto and fossil fuel industries have been taking out our mass transit systems and creating our dependence on oil. We need to implement a tax on carbon and then there will be incentives for clean and renewable systems. It’s not our fault the fossil fuel industry has bought off our elected officials under the guise of “free speech” and they are amassing billions of dollars while destroying the bio-sphere….WE are the ones we have been waiting for! It’s time to throw the puppets out and demand changes for the “Great Healing”.

Quebarbera!

No, Suzuki is referring to the kind of deception that both types of corporations have used — cover ups that will allow the continued consumption of products that will eventually be our demise … are already proving to be our demise.

Quebarbera!

There will come a time in our lifetime, most likely, when we will not have a choice around exercising our convictions. We will simply have no hot water, no gasoline for our car, air conditioning, or even central heating. And this is the truth of it, whether we like it or not.

Anonymous

They said it would take centuries to return to normal. They did not say that nothing would grow there for centuries. The complete story is important unless you are trying to spread disinformation. Are you?

Anonymous

Another one of the elites who thinks he ‘knows’ the Earth and its dynamics – because of his knowledge of today’s science. The Earth has always been changing. Many, many times. Nòt man’s fault btw. She just does that. We human dò pollute and ravage and slaughter animals – and that must stop – but carbon taxing…? Please, stop. CO2 is just fine for greens – look outside. Google it and be amazed. Even science confirmed that fact. Many scientists did. Mr Suzuki is a very rich man and pollutes with his way of living more than my whole street does. He lives in a box and can’t see outside of it.

Anonymous

Yes! We need a carbon tax and we can apply and innovate the solutions.

Anonymous

We need a carbon tax, and i will be happy for fossil fuels to cost a lot more, and to use my ingenuity to take hot solar showers and heat with wood and solar gain and store it in thermal mass. Go ahead, make my day.

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

We’ll have hot water. It just won’t be hot from the combustion of a fossil. It’ll be hot from harvesting solar power or using wind or hydro or burning wood.

Joseph is a fine example of what we can expect to come out of Kongress and Washington. Blather that will hasten Amerika and Humanity’s Demise.

Dan Poresky

Possibly the Best Idea for Getting Meaningful Action on Climate Change. The U.S. can move much faster to greatly cut carbon emissions through privately funded, large-scale, well-run education programs that will get the public to accept and, for many, demand strong carbon reduction legislation. Such programs will also bring much needed support for the work being done by countless other climate change efforts. The best part is that this approach doesn’t have to wait for government approval and the money is readily available. to read my entire proposal go to agshen dot org and click on Climate Change

JonThomas

Did you not read his comment? There are many ways of taking hot solar showers. Just because you may like to live your life one way, does not mean everyone must , or does conform.

JonThomas

What???!!! People could even boil water before fossil fuels???

JonThomas

And a carbon tax is but one (perhaps the most sensible) way to recover the hidden costs of fossil fuels.

JonThomas

All or nothing reasoning is an irrational approach.

The fossil-fueled culture you describe did not come about over night. In the early days of fossil fuel expansion, humans really were blissfully ignorant.

One invention, one convenience followed another. Making the move away from fossil fuels, and lifestyles that are self-defeating, will be akin to weening. More to the point, many of us have already made drastic changes that fit your descriptions.

Others are making the incremental changes that move humanity in a sustainable direction.

For you to use such a drastic rationalization (that since, for many, changes can’t be made all at once, and since you won’t do it, “we” must) such everyday decisions toward sustainability must upset you as much as it does the businesses, corporations and stockholders whose profits rely on people remaining apathetic.

For some, change can be as simple as: instead of tossing it in the trash… recycling a plastic container.

For others, the only real option is changing their entire lifestyle. The real proof of your irrationality though, lies in the unfolding process of knowledge.

Just as the events which led us to this point, and the culture now experienced in western societies unfolded slowly, so does our understanding of our mistakes.

Each individual who becomes aware of the conditions we find ourselves in does not immediately understand the intertwined layers contributing to the problem. Perhaps first they see a bird covered in oil, dying. Then maybe they see a fish dead from plastic wrapped around their fins. Next, 300,000 people losing their water supply to contamination. Then they realize the food they eat contributes to the problem. Then they hear how everyday products contribute to the problem… etc…

It slowly unfolds in their minds how, for the sake of short term comfort, and profit, people like yourself are claiming that changes toward a better way of living is a practical hardship.

Such irrationality is the equivalent of putting a house and farm close to the river so that the short term benefits provided by the river’s resources are convenient. Then when informed, or reminded that the river floods, instead of moving the house away… then the crops… then making sure the fishing boat is safe, etc… they just live in denial. Worse, when the flood does happen they expect everyone to bail them out.

People who deny that any change is practical, truly become an enemy. By completely ignoring the powers of small and continuing changes, and by not recommending every small progressive lifestyle correction possible, such people begin to seen as what they are, obstructionists out to keep people asleep… “don’t worry, keep doing what you’re doing, it’s nothing, go back to sleep.”

A few last things… If you actually watched the entire video, you would know that Mr, Suzuki is not one of the people saying… “humanity is dead in 100 years.”

I say… plant a fruit or nut tree in your yard, support resources that do not require the logging of rain forests, let your lawn grow an inch taller before you mow. Better yet, learn about foundation plantings and edible CO2 capturing landscapes and slowly reduce, or even eliminate your lawn.

Along with the natural process of absorbing the ‘extra’ CO2 from the wine making, a vine provides vertical use of an otherwise planted space, and is just another small incremental step ignored in your comment.

Then, after helping people see the possibilities, and like myself and many, many others, after making such ‘small’ informed, progressive choices, you too can feel comfortable opening that fermented bottle of wine (perhaps made by you from fruit planted right outside your door.)

With a clear conscience, knowing you did what you could to offset some of the actions of those who remain asleep, without feeling the need to criticize, and find fault with the positive life choices of others, you too can sit down and begin to truly enjoy the entire interview between Mr. Moyers and his guest, Mr. Suzuki.

JonThomas

As explained in the video, looking at each segment of information can be beneficial to science and understanding, but all things in the real world are connected.

An increase in CO2 is naturally going to offer a potential increase in biomass, but not knowing how micro-climates will be affected is hubris.

Without consistent and moderate rainfall events, all the CO2 increase you can imagine will not benefit every bio region equally.

Plenty of CO2 in the Sahara.

Lots of CO2 in California, and the Western U.S. right now. Sure, the aquifers are hiding the effects of the drought (for now,) but your reasoning is woefully lacking in understanding.

JonThomas

In order to use the ‘extra’ CO2 plants also need water and rain.

The anthropomorphic changes to the Earth are not predictable for each region. An oasis of bio-mass does not support a desert of bioregionality.

JC

Your suggestions have merit. There needs to be a “paradigm shift” in thinking on this issue; and, in other highly industrialized countries. Humans ARE the major force who are altering the biosphere. I agree with Suzuki when he says that the world will continue no matter what…the question is, “What quality of life do you want to have in the future?” If we really admit that this is a global issue that won’t go away on its own, then we are probably doomed to be The Sixth Extinction as the book implies. We are inextricably connected to all forms of life on this planet, and to deny this is a grave mistake in reasoning. To politicize this issue is also a grave mistake. People in denial like Rubio, Cruz, Jindal, Satorian, Paul, McConnell, and Barton (who drills for oil), are only in denial because they get large contributions to their campaigns to hold the bottom line. I’m sure there are a few Democrats to throw into this mix too. Corporate America pushes negative ads and tries to foil scientific facts, at every turn, when the facts contradict or interfere with their bottom line. If you believe in climate change, you are painted with a broad brush as an environmental extremist who is no better than a terrorist. Negative connotation and implication are tricks that have been used in politics and advertising for years. So, I say, wake up and see through the smoke and mirrors to what really is, in fact, reality in our world. Practicing a notion of ignorance has no place in this looming issue. Suzuki is a brilliant scientist who is also humble and, he knows his limitations in this world. Would that some of our politicians and CEOs had the same conscience in regard to protecting themselves, their families, their future generations, and the biosphere at large.

Anonymous

Earth is a conscious being and we are mere fleas on her skin – very irritating ones. When she really gets fed up with our polluting and digging her guts out .. she’ll shake a few giant shakes and spew some buckets of lava and were all gone. Shè can start over but we shall cease to be. Thank gawd. Keep on worrying, brave hearts

Anonymous

Hybrid car (bought used/recycled), solar powered house has dropped my energy consumption and bills by 71% over the last 2 years, solar also heats the water in my tankless water heater. All are today’s tech and that tech is improving rapidly and getting cheaper. Next need for solar users is cheaper, smaller, energy storage batteries. Tesla is working on that now.

Anonymous

Really? No, Mr. Suzuki pretty much IS one of these people who see humanity extinct by 2100!!!!!!!! And you’re telling me now that, oh, we’re not saying anything drastic has to happen, just a rational, gradual approach to the problem? You’ve got to be kidding! You just rationalized away Suzuki’s ultimate concern about humanity’s dire prospects! You essentially make him out to be an alarmist! And, you made it all about you and your little life changes that by themselves mean absolutely nothing if just about everyone else doesn’t join in. You made my point for me, which is that people everywhere love to talk up big impending disaster, but when push comes to shove, they’ll wait for someone else to make the grand gesture before signing on…maybe.

Thanks again for making my point for me. Seems others here have the same perspective as you.

Anonymous

But that’s not the point. Assuming he’s not using one of these green water heater setups, did he take a cold shower this morning, and will he continue to until he’s rigged that green alternative? Would you?

Anonymous

I wonder about people like you. How is what I’m proposing any more “blather” than what Bill Moyers and other climate alarmists are saying? Is Obama’s latest Climate Change push about making dire choices, or is it just blather? I’d say the latter. Because he is ostensibly making the case that if we don’t do something, and soon, humanity is in for a real rough ride. And yet, is he setting an example for the nation? Is Moyers? How about Al Gore, the big kahuna of Climate’s Gonna Getcha? I’ve had people whose carbon footprints are double and triple anything I put out accuse me of not caring for the planet because I take them to task for talking the talking but neglecting to walk the walk. It’s about wearing “I care” on one’s sleeve, which in the end has everything to do about sounding good, but nothing to do with the reality of what would have to take place should the warnings we are hearing from Susuki and others be credible.

Do we have to address issues like this every time someone comes to a comment board with preconceived notions, agendas, and disdain for the guests???

If you had actually watched the show, or read the transcript available as a drop-down under the video, you may have heard, or read this exchange…

BILL MOYERS: Three years ago, you said you would likely die before your children became mature adults and have their own children. But you said you were filled with hope to imagine their future, and I’m quoting, rich in opportunity, beauty, wonder and companionship with the rest of creation. As the climate crisis has worsened over the last three years, what has happened to your hope?

DAVID SUZUKI: Well, a lot of my colleagues have now said it’s too late. Clive Hamilton, an eminent eco-philosopher in Australia wrote a book, “Requiem for a Species.” And we’re the species it’s a requiem for. I’ve read everything, the entire book, and there’s nothing I disagree with there. James Lovelock, the man who invented this idea of Gaia, says 90 percent of humanity will be gone by the end of the century.

And Sir Martin Rees, the royal astronomer in Britain was asked what are the chances humans will be around by 2100, and he said 50/50. So there are a lot of my colleagues are saying we’ve passed too many tipping points to go back. My answer is thank you for the message of urgency. We don’t know enough to say it’s too late.

And this isn’t some kind of Pollyannaish idea. I base that notion of our ignorance on reality. In, the most prized species of salmon in the world is the sockeye salmon. It’s got that bright red fatty flesh that we all love. And the largest sockeye salmon run in the world is in Canada in the Fraser River.

We like a run of about 20 to 35 million salmon is a good run, that’s a lot of fish. And in nineteen, sorry, in the year 2009, just over a million sockeye came back to the Fraser. And I said to my wife, that’s it. There isn’t enough biomass to get them to, they’re going extinct. A year later, and we, the government set up a royal commission to look into what the heck happened to the sockeye salmon.

A year later, we got the biggest run of sockeye in a hundred years. Now, I like to cite this not to show how stupid I am. Nobody knows what happened. But nature surprised us. And I believe that nature has many more surprises if we can pull back and give her room. And that’s the basis of my hope. And that’s all I’m left with. I see where the curves are all going. But I still cling to hope as the thing that we’ve got to grab onto if we give nature a chance.

I do not know what Mr. Suzuki once believed. Humans are dynamic creatures and all of us have the potential to grow and mature as individuals.

If you bring your preconceptions and issues with Mr. Suzuki to a forum like this one, where the guest explains his current thinking and beliefs as they are formed now, then Joseph, I’m sorry to say this so brutally honest, but make yourself look a bit foolish.

Right in the transcript from which I quoted, Mr. Suzuki gives us a different opinion from that which you claim he ascribes. Joseph, I choose to accept his explanation of his own thinking, not what you say are his beliefs.

Anonymous

So whatever positives there might be, … well, they’re really just negatives. Is that what you’re saying?

JC

You are right….but we are destroying the plants at an alarming rate. Check out dying coral reefs, deforestation, China has restricted times in large industrial cities where people can’t go outside due to high particulates in the air, etc. This is all because of human-generated actions that need to change if we are to assist Mother Nature in helping insure a future where our children and, hopefully, their children’s children will inherit a biologically sustainable planet. The world will go on, no matter what; with or without humans. We are inextricably tied to the biological world we live in….destroy it and we destroy ourselves. I’ve read the site you referenced and, in my opinion, the “science”, and I use that term very loosely, is very skewed in the direction of some one(s) who seem to have a political agenda behind them.

Anonymous

OK, I’ll concede, maybe Suzuki isn’t quite the doom and gloom I made him out to be, but then, who are these other folks? Listen, we hear day in and day out from experts and non-experts alike that unless we do something soon – very soon – humanity is going to face big time disaster. Susuki may not be willing to state that we’re all dead to the last human in a hundred years, but plenty of others are saying those things and it begs the question: What, then, is their real-world answer to fixing that problem? And of these people, who will walk the walk, not just talk it? We’re either in dire circumstances, or we’re not, and from what I can see, even those who claim the world is ending don’t really act like it.

JonThomas

My lifestyle is not open to your criticism. If you would like to POLITELY explain to me, or “Sage Thinker,” the importance of taking environmentally sustainable hot showers, or even exhort us toward change, then that is a different point.

However, for you to assume that we all live as you do… taking fossil-fueled hot showers every morning, as tool to intimidate, is rude at best.

For all you know, any of us may have made huge changes in our lives… including, if we do take hot showers, perhaps shared, even communal, use of such personal accoutrements.

JonThomas

Fair enough.

JonThomas

What I am saying is exactly what I said…

“An increase in CO2 is naturally going to offer a potential increase in biomass, but not knowing how micro-climates will be affected is hubris.”

Human activity is changing the planet in unknown, albeit potentially dire, even predictable fashions. Such self-destruction has happened before, and if lessons from the past are not learned (the Incas, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Ancient Cambodians, Mesopotamia, et al,) misuse of, and short term profiting from, the Earth’s resources will cause it to happen again!

JonThomas

“Earth is a conscious being…”

I’m not sure of the meaning behind your comment. Are you saying that the Earth has a brain, which from every physical example we now know of, or understand, is required for consciousness?

Erupting volcanoes are conscious acts by the physical Earth? I’m sure you aren’t being sarcastically dismissive… ok, maybe I’m not sure… you wouldn’t make fun of people… would you?

Unless of course you are proposing a new form of physical consciousness. That’s fine… really, I’m looking forward for the evidence.

Anonymous

Suzuki – One of the best shows this evening.

A sobering reality – To be a naysayer in such crisis is liken to one holding up the sign that reads; “I’m ignorant, stupid and enjoy sticking my head in the sand so follow me.” You can thank the many leaders of the ‘people’ (strike that, add ‘commerce’) for the situation (to be passed on to our children) like; President Reagan’s dismantling of the Solar Energy Program launched by President Carter that harmfully setback Green Technology in favor of fossil fuel market subsidies (1981).

Some say Climate Change it just about money; and yes, much about money – the US and China are prime examples of this and China has a big problem as well, for it has replicated US industrial progress since US manufacturing pushed jobs offshore over issues of healthcare, salary/benefits and higher profits (and the bonus of tax-free offshore accounts – currently totaling nearly 2 Trillion)

Yes; the powerful bought their way into meddling with America’s ingredients to suit themselves and when the recipe failed the public (and our children) are left as the big loser. Human society has been led astray by greedy powers for the sole purpose of commercial gain with disregard for planetary sustainability and we and our children are its trained consumer assets to perpetuate the Sell and the Buy. This (now out of control) activity is like a cancer on our planetary ‘organism’ as the human ‘foot-print’ of our activity in industrialization, waste and pollution are quickly becoming no longer sustainable for our earth and why the recent studies in that regard. Independently (and by coincidence), I recently made a personal milestone on an old theme (‘There’s only one planet humans can call home’) but the great reveal was in identifying the connecting social/political mechanisms that result in a dysfunctional society.

Wouldn’t cost the public much different just change in conscience and choices – The public’s eyes have been opened and things are going to change, for the public get’s it that the old business model is ‘out’ for a better more efficient, green world and have began lessening consumer consumption and waste, holding on to goods longer and rewarding companies with smart greener products and services and the new jobs for this will be there to make this green shift happen. The problem is the old business model tycoons not only, not wish to change but have refuse to release control over the markets by resorting to political sabotage, blocking any real progress in a green direction out of the greed for money (the ‘keystone pipeline’; only token permanent jobs and the oil goes to China, not exactly a strengthening of Americas energy independence and the list goes on) all this to better the interest of the powerful and not of the peoples.

A New Business model: Originality – Seeing the Future; Good business means good products that help people and Eco-Friendly. Consumers exercise their power from overreaching conglomerates by rewarding businesses practicing good business models, buying their goods & services ensuring the success of good companies to grow bringing more jobs. Good products have longer life cycles, can be handed down or have built-in recycle plan (reducing the junk). That’s the cycle of good business and good progress.

Why the priority: well; how are we at Risk Management? The record, I’ll cite a recent two – the Katrina/Louisiana Disaster (nearly 2,000 deaths); BP-Gulf Oil Spill. Certainly, a ‘Catastrophic Failure in Risk Management’.

Climate Change is of global concern and shouldn’t be a partisan issue, there is an International team of science in agreement here and this one, we can’t get wrong.

Anonymous

I see the paid, political troll’s are out.

As Moyers had mentioned in the story; In America we all too often have a narrow view of our world as we’re media fed by a paid ‘conglomeration’ managed by the powerful ‘deep-pocketed’ big business, special interest lobbyist and congress in that when statements on an issue are made by Politician’s in the media, these forums are flooded with propaganda by the ‘deep-pocketed-conglomeration’ (and a few honest citizens, for & against) in support of that Politicians claim which all serves the same political end. The powerful bought their way into meddling with America’s ingredients to suit themselves and when the recipe failed the public’s left as the big loser. So I ask you, who really then are these representing, surly not the good of the people. The track record for miss-managing Risk Management is clear.

NotARedneck

“I see the paid, political troll’s are out.”

So true. I would estimate that extreme right wing interests have 200,000 on the payroll. This explains why housing in the DC area is so expensive.

Anonymous

Like an apple from an apple tree, we come out of this world. We’re a ‘product’ òf it – not separate fròm it. We’re one. And when one reflects on all the life forms created and adapted to its biosphere, I do not consider the idea abnormal that there exists a (collective) consciousness based on the complexity of its output. Nature, the great provider, mùst have some degree of consciousness, if its product displays consciousness. We try and invent computers that mimic human intelligence – has nature secured what we find impossible? The Earth is a living and breathing thing no matter what the sarcastic observer would like to make humor of.

Anonymous

The WH climate budget is now $2.5 billion per year. Whose money is driving this hoax? Yours and mine.

Anonymous

And one thing responsible for chopping down our trees is BIO-FUEL which really ought to be banned not mandated and subsidized.

Anonymous

Only an extreme paranoid nutjob would believe in a hoax or conspiracy of this magnitude, especially without any proof. You have no proof whatsoever of this so called hoax, yet you believe it with all your heart, even at the detrement of others. As in, the rest of us.

Anonymous

There’s no conspiracy at play – only BIG FEDERAL DOLLARS.

1. Who hires “climate scientists”? (only government) 2. What is their end “product”? (scare people)

3. Would 99% of them be needed at all if CO2 actually made no measurable difference in earth’s temp.? (no)

4. Why should I just trust that these people are being honest? How can they be verified to be telling the truth? (Let’s ask ones like Michael Mann if they would be willing to take a lie detector test? Bet they’d all say “NO WAY”!)

I do not need proof… THEY DO! (That’s how real science works!) They still need to prove their theory which is based entirely on computer models. How can anyone be silly enough to actually believe those models are an accurate representation of something as complex as earth’s climate? Dr. Freeman Dyson said those models are chock full of assumptions and are certainly not reliable enough to stake our economic future on.

I listen to the smartest people in the room like him, not to eco-warriors like Hansen, complete hypocrites like Al Gore and certainly not to publicity whores like David Suzuki who say things so outrageously exaggerated that it makes the IPCC look like a “denier” group.

Anonymous

I sent an invoice to the Koch brothers for all the time I’ve spent trying to expose this hoax designed from the start to HURT the USA. (haven’t heard back yet…)

Anonymous

That’s it – send me to re-education camp! What I learned in Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer and 6 terms of math in college was all a big lie!

Anonymous

Big oil is heavily invested in alternative energy – for the TAX BREAKS so where’s their dog in this fight? Besides, big oil wins no matter what happens – gasoline is an INELASTIC commodity!

Anonymous

“..two-thirds or more of all species become extinct due to climate change” Put down the bong, the LEAST detectable change in temperature is in the warm tropics and guess what? .. that’s where well over 90% of living species live. Life is easier where it is warmer. The ones at the poles are the HARDIEST of species. Polar bears endure temperature swings 50X that which would easily wipe out species in the tropics.

Anonymous

They’re all waiting for their hero Al Gore to lead by example.

Anonymous

The United States navy now makes gasoline out of seawater @ $3 a gallon. Big Oil is defunct. Only lies and excuses keep it going.

Anonymous

AS of Now, the United States Navy makes gasoline out of sea water @ $3 a gallon. Big Oil is defunct and only kept going by lies and excuses.

Pam Driscoll

If you have been studying the effects on species such as polar bears you would know it’s not the temperature extremes that are threatening them, it’s the ice melting. They drown because they used to be able to swim from one ice float/burg to another while fishing and now they swim so far before they find ice to rest on, they are drowning. It’s MUCH more complicated than that!

JonThomas

There may well be a ‘collective consciousness’ of sorts, I won’t argue over unproven therories of that nature.

However, I would make 2 points…

1. Such a consciousness as you now describe, does not make for a conscious Earth that erupts volcanoes at will.

If the habitat which allows human life to prosper upon the Earth is to continue unabated, then it is up to us to be better stewards. The Earth will not consciously, as you said… “shake a few giant shakes and spew some buckets of lava and were all gone.”

2. Worry (as you expressed in your previous comment) implies helplessness. It is true that the forces that are now profiting off fossil fuels do possess and command considerable power.

However… we are not helpless. Concern, strengthened with knowledge, insight, and moral fortitude moves good people to action…

I’ve seen the kingdoms blow Like ashes in the winds of change. Yeah but the power of truth Is the fuel for the flame So the darker the ages get, there’s a stronger beacon yet…

When your vision stays clear In the face of your fear (In the face of your fear)

Then you see turning out a light switch Is their only power. When we stand like spotlights In a mighty tower. All for one and one for all, then we sing the common call…

Let it be me (This is not a fighting song) Let it be me (Not a wrong for a wrong) Let it be me If the world is night Shine my life like a light.

John Wylie

Excellent presentation by BM and David Suzuki. Would be interrested on David’s take on possabilities and potential of

something I have studied for number of years in my retirement: That is Nuclear fusion to replaice carbon-bassed and nuclear fission energy. I am not a nuclear physicist, but looks promising and practical from my perspective. BSME UC Berkeley, 1962….retired food-processing and mechanized farming engineer.

Pearl Orlind Bailey

Deniers say the Earth has always been changing. We’ve had ice ages, mass extinctions, the Permian being the most devastating biological catastrophe. Hot jungle temps in the Arctic and elsewhere.

We’re due for another big change. We’ve been transforming the climate system in a short time, not thousands of years, but in less than two hundred years.

Anonymous

Actually, (hot)Nuclear Fusion is 100% doable with current off the shelf technologies. Has been for about 20 years. It is just a matter of will, honesty, heart, soul and selflessness. With some upscaling, a majority of coal and oil fired electric plants could be converted with-in a decade. But greed and selfishness seems insurmountable obstacles to making it happen.

JonThomas

Guy, did you watch the video, or even read the title of this episode?

Instead of discussing the topic, you attack the messenger. Why are you waging war upon the messenger???

If instead of attacking him, if you were earnest about your point concerning his lifestyle, why not exhort, or provide encouragement for Mr. Suzuki to live a more simple life? You could even offer suggestions on how he can still raise awareness without living as destructively as you claim.

By attacking him, you show yourself to be sowing discord and distraction from his message.

Anonymous

Take a white sheet of stiff paper or cardboard. Form it into a cone with a with openings at both ends. Hold the large opening up to a light bulb and point the small opening at your skin and focus the image. You’ll feel the heat. This is called a non-imaging concentrating lens. a key component of a fusion reactor. Information in regard to this and other components is almost impossible to find on due to suppression.

John Wylie

See fusionpowercorporation for well studied proposal if you have not already done so. Agree with most of your statements, except fusionpower says must be much larger to be effective economically and physically.

JC

You might want to read the reports on climate change, both supporting the argument, and those denying it. I got into 900+ pages and it’s fairly obvious to me that the detractors of climate change (read: global warming), are basing most of their argument on the fact that CO2 enhances plant growth and that the “greening” of the earth has increased as a result. They run genetic engineering and new strides in the technology of hybridization of species up the flagpole to argue against the inevitable water shortages we are now facing: just re-engineer the plant’s ability to store water and CO2 for times when drought and famine are facing certain populations, and we’ll survive just fine. They totally miss what Suzuki was getting at in his recent comments: the message is, we have been charged, as the predominate species, with the responsibility of taking care of this biomass sphere we call earth. We are the stewards of our own destiny. For example, if we continue polluting, over-using resources, and disregarding the”warnings” (such as dying off of many coral reefs around the world due to acidic areas in the ocean; which is directly caused by mankind’s unchecked pollution), that Mother Nature sends our way, we will lose our place in the species hierarchy…..plants may take our place. If you think that’s funny….think insects , which are much more efficient than any human. Our resources on this planet are finite; we either manage them efficiently or we lose them….climate change or not.

Anonymous

I like this guy – Suzuki. He is actually making the point of the climate change skeptics.

Some quotes of his (from memory):

“We don’t know enough”

“Nature will surprise us”

“If trees and other environmental assets are considered so valuable, buy them”

“Environmentalists will always lose the economic argument”

“The planet will be fine”

“My key colleagues think it is too late – some say that 90% of humans will be gone by the turn of the century”

“We are not the apex species. It is not our responsibility to steer the world”

Bravo!!!! Finally Bill Moyers brought out a dissenting opinion AND a solid member of the 1% to his show.

susanpub

Silly statement.

Anonymous

>baron95-Is that really what you got out of this program? Incredible.

Anonymous

Another possible solution would be to provide every household with the appropriate sized plutonium oxide fuel cell/cells like on Mars Curiousity and a smart grid tied converter. The fuel cells would meets the household’s basic generation needs for years and the grid would provide for heavier high demand loads. With all grid tied households being power generators, the load on and need for power plants would decrease. You can’t build a bomb out of plutonium oxide and built properly, radiation is no problem. Getting past the stigma would be the biggest hurdle.

Anonymous

What would make a great educational program would be The Nature of People. Definitely one of the programs would be on the phenomenon of people hearing what they want to regardless of context or the actual words.

pointofgrille

“frightening adjectives”, “trying to pull one over on us”,”goes on to state untrue things”, “jet sets around the world”, “not exactly telling the truth about ‘things’ on one of shows”, “suffers from ‘catastrophic thinking'”, “leader of a doomsday cult”. Certainly serious and well thought out confabulations, Mark G. At least give Dr. Suzuki credit for not putting the animals freed from “the drudgery of the harness and hard labor,” back to their work-a-day lives.

Anonymous

Why? What did you get?

Was there anything that I missed. Like if we do X and Y, all will be well?

I saw him say that he just “hopes” that nature will find a way.

Am I supposed to be impressed by that?

Sorry. I don’t run my life or businesses or car racing career based on hope. I run on purposeful action to achieve results.

Anonymous

You’re in luck! I have a bridge for sale…

Anonymous

(This is a re-post after being shamelessly deleted earlier. If you can’t accept contrary views on Disqus then stop using it and have your own little cabal of the like minded on a private comment board.)

There’s no conspiracy at play – only BIG FEDERAL DOLLARS.

1. Who hires “climate scientists”? (only government) 2. What is their end “product”? (scare people) 3. Would 99% of them be needed at all if CO2 actually made no measurable difference in earth’s temp.? (no) 4. Why should I just trust that these people are being honest?

How can they be verified to be telling the truth? (Let’s ask ones like Michael Mann if they would be willing to take a lie detector test? Bet they’d all say “NO WAY”!)

I do not need proof… they do! (That’s how real science works!) They still need to prove their theory which is based entirely on computer models. How can anyone be silly enough to actually believe those models are an accurate representation of something as complex as earth’s climate? Dr. Freeman Dyson said those models are chock full of assumptions and are certainly not reliable enough to stake our economic future on.

I listen to the smartest people in the room like him, not to eco-terrorists like Hansen, complete hypocrites like Al Gore and certainly not to publicity prostitutes like David Suzuki who say things so outrageously exaggerated that it makes the IPCC look like a “denier” group.

Anonymous

Exactly the point I was making facetiously – all the BIG money is funding the hoax.

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Anonymous

Nothing changed in my town in 40 years so this ‘rapid’ change must be happening somewhere else ‘globaly’. Check out “Climate at a Glance” to get the temperature and precip record of your local area.

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Anonymous

The W word? If so then sorry for assuming that words I hear on broadcast TV are okay.

Anonymous

Every living thing directly or indirectly “exploits” the earth in some way in order to live. If earth does have a consciousness then earth expects us to do what we’re doing or she would not have created us in the first place.

Anonymous

I looked at articles at Forbes, New Scientist and the Navy but can’t figure where you got that $3 a gallon number? Care to share?

Anonymous

More loans to Solyndra?

Anonymous

How? He’s a colossal hypocrite! He emits at least 20X more CO2 than the average person. If he was sincerely concerned about reducing emissions he’d lead by example flying on commercial flights, driving a Prius and build an ecologically sound house like George W. Bush did. (check out snopes “A Tale of Two Houses”)

Thank God he failed to steal the 2000 election, Gore is absolutely not a leader, (few senators ever have been..)

Anonymous

It isn’t just the temperature of the water that counts, it’s the energy to make it safe and clean, the energy to pump it to your house and the energy to treat the waste water. Plus there’s the cheap energy needed to make all the plumbing components affordable for every house. US tap water is proudly among the safest and cleanest in the world – all thanks to free market capitalism that generates the surplus to make it all affordable.

Anonymous

It will happen slowly – when it does. The USGS indicates we have over 200 years of coal left in the ground. Coal is most responsible for transforming the life style of the average person from that of agrarian subsistence to all of us living better than even royalty could have imagined ~150 years ago. Coal also saved our forests, (crude oil saved the whales).

Anonymous

If the costs are hidden then how do you know they exist?

Anonymous

Except that government is subsidizing fossil fuels. So let’s level the playing field.

Anonymous

David Suzuki lives in a modest ordinary house with his wife. He owns a small cottage on one of the many small islands in the Salish Sea ( between Vancouver Island and the mainland of BC). Many ordinary people also own a small cottages on these islands. He is not a millionaire. Where do you get your wrong info from? Dr Suzuki is a genetic scientist who has spent many years exploring the diversity of nature and has hosted a weekly show watched by millions of Canadians. He is well loved and respected in Canada for being an honest and extremely intelligent man and scientist. No oil company or university is paying him to talk about climate change. He does it on his own. He began an environmental Foundation many years ago and I was a member for four years. He has since retired. In fact he retired when the Canadian government began to harass all environmental groups, stating that his popularity was a magnet for the harassment and he would leave his post so the foundation could continue their work without drawing so much negative attention from the government. I’m sorry you don’t seem to think climate change is happening. I hope the fact that it is and that humans are the cause won’t come as too big a shock to you in the future.

Pearl Orlind Bailey

Temperature? precip? Read Richard Turco

Anonymous

Every single thing you mention is insignificant and petty compared to the net good that fossil fuels have brought to humanity. Doubled human life span, much more comfortable living for the masses, much more free time to do what you enjoy plus.. an end to widespread abuse of working animals, (horses and oxen). Coal saved our forests from being completely chopped down for heat and lumber plus crude oil saved whales from extinction.

Take away fossil fuel from existence and think how we would all be living – and few of us would even be here at that. You are truly ignorant of all the good that fossil fuel has brought us.

Farming in the late 1800’s in western Pennsylvania relied on farm workers who were paid next to nothing; my grandfather was one of them in Fulton County PA. He moved to Allegheny County to work in a coal mine. Nobody FORCED him work in that mine, they paid 20X more per hour than a farm worker. The technical knowledge he gained in the mine later helped him get a job working on bridges in Pittsburgh making him even more money – enough for his children including my mother to go to college, (there were no government college loans in the 1930’s). A lot of the coal he dug from the mine went into making steel inexpensively to build the city and also greatly expanded steam powered rail service to carry freight and passengers across the country. Electricity from coal led to air conditioning and elevators to build the first modern hospitals. Gasoline stopped the need to whip horses near to death to bring food/garbage in/out of the cities. Perhaps “whipping a dead horse” was just an expression but before electricity and gasoline the vendors hauling ice into cities in the summer would unhitch a dead horse from the team and leave it in the street because… the ice HAD to get through or everyone’s food would be spoiled a day later.

Anonymous

Why should I bother with anyone you mention when “Climate at a Glance” presents the data directly from the NCDC that is a division of NOAA? Does Richard have his own secret cache of temperature data or something?

Canuck

OK Suzuki… there’s been no warming since 1998. The science is far from settled. You and your ilk are just desperate because the data doesn’t support your confirmation bias and now you want to throw people in jail?

Give me a break.

Canuck

He make some good general points about society.. but he’s talking about everything EXCEPT the science.

Since the 1950s big business has been developing ways to hypnotize the majority of US people by using advertising and marketing based on solid psychological research. Their #1 tool is television and money. The climate change issue, like the “need” to wage war every 5 years for “cheap oil” or access to foreign economies and resources will be the downfall of the human race unless intelligent minds like Bill Moyers and David Suzuki are given a larger stage to express the truth. How can we do this? I only can see an uprising by the large middle and lower waged people, executing street protests and, yes, violence. Golly, at least we still have our guns!

Anonymous

And cold is far worse than hot as proven by the fact that 75% of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of it’s southern border, (National Geographic).

JonThomas

Again… you forfeited the right to a civil discussion through your own trollish behavior.

Instead of admitting your deception concerning extremely serious ‘hidden’ costs, once you were exposed you shifted the discussion.

This is uncivil behavior. A person cannot consider building any worthwhile endeavor upon shifting sands. You have publicly proven yourself to be untrustworthy for serious and meaningful discussion.

I shall not spend time and effort throwing any further pearl in the mud.

Anonymous

“Again… you forfeited the right to a civil discussion through your own trollish behavior. Instead of admitting your deception concerning extremely serious ‘hidden’ costs, once you were exposed you shifted the discussion.

This is uncivil behavior. A person cannot consider building any worthwhile endeavor upon shifting sands. You have publicly proven yourself to be untrustworthy for serious and meaningful discussion.

I shall not spend time and effort throwing any further pearl in the mud.”

Not that anything you write could ever bother someone like me, I hope that you at least recognize that your last reply was directed solely at me personally and mentioned nothing about the topic, (which is why I quoted it). Between the two of us you are the one tossing the ad hominems not I. If you can’t realize that nor attempt to reply to anything specific to what I wrote then I have nothing else for you.

JonThomas

Dude… 2 comments ago I told you directly that I wasn’t going to discuss the topic with you… and I explained why.

Now, when I’m not even debating the issue, you accuse me of logic errors?

Are you trying to start an argument?

This is exactly the type of trollish behavior I spoke about.

Move on already!

moderator

JonThomas and Dances,

Time to agree to disagree. Please move on without further comment.

Thanks Moderator @ Moyers

moderator

Dances and JonThomas

Time to agree to disagree. Please move on without further comment.

Thanks

Moderator @ Moyers

JonThomas

I think I posted just before you did… thank you for your comment. If you need, please feel free to delete what you feel necessary.

Anonymous

(Reposted after shamelessly being marked as “spam”.)

Look at the TEMPERATURE DATA: tinyurl(dot)com(slash)lckutuu

Temperature is NOT “accelerating”… not by a long shot. Earth warmed more in 35 years from 1910 to 1945 when there was less CO2 in the air than it did from 1965 to 2000.

The warming over the last 17 years has been INSIGNIFICANT, less than 0.02 degrees, less than most thermometers can even detect and for other data sets it’s going negative.

Imma Mazing

That’s right, there’s nothing wrong, just keep destroying the planet with your head in the sand. Give ME a break.

Anonymous

(This comment is re-posted after being deleted for what any jury would call a lighthearted jibe.)

“..two-thirds or more of all species become extinct due to climate change”

Stop fooling yourself, the LEAST detectable change of temperature is in the warm tropics and .. that’s where well over 90% of living species live. Life is easier where it is warmer.

The species at the poles are the HARDIEST creatures on earth. Polar bears endure temperature swings 50X that which would easily wipe out species in the tropics.

Imma Mazing

Wow, just wow.

Imma Mazing

You already are backwards. If extinction happens it should start with you. You’re going to get uppity because a scientist makes money at being a scientist yet “celebrities” make millions for doing nothing, is that okay with you? Where do you get fossil fuels doubling our life span? Science has increased our life span but it seems like you don’t believe in science. Our governments set the value of things like the dollar, and control cost of living, not fossil fuels. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to respond to someone like you. Go ahead and pull some more delusions out of your butt.

Canuck

C02 is not destroying the planet. You’re being fed a narrative.

You know what?

I’m deeply concerned about what’s happening to our oceans with overfishing and driftnets

I’m worried about habitat encroachment and the extinction of species

I find the murdering of exotic animals for their horns and fur and trophy hunting repugnant.

Mono-cropping and insecticides in our topsoil and rivers, the over use of ant-biotics in agriculture troubles me deeply.

I can’t stand the factory farming processes used by the food industry.

Atmospheric pollution from Sulphur and other genuinely noxious particulates is another problem.

Effluent, industrial polluton, heavy minerals etc.- all a problem.

We need to protect our environment from all these hazards and elminate or at least substantially reduce our footprint.

You know what I’m NOT worried about?

Global warming from C02 emissions. Anybody who actually bothers to look into it critically and objectively will see that it’s completely hyped and there’s no solid evidence that we’re influencing the weather at all.

C02 is not a pollutant. It’s how living things grow and it’s .04% of the atmosphere. The temperature has been flat for the last 17 years.

NIH Smoking and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease: review of the epidemiological studies.

(Pick the link with the identical title which might might not be the first. Both are published in the National Institute for Health.)

Second hand smoke at home is good for kids, it protects them from lung cancer later in life .

Smoking cuts your risk of AD and Parkinson’s disease in half.

I’m not saying to light up, smoking still adds a big risk to longevity but don’t blindly believe all of the claims…

Imma Mazing

Climate change is not caused by Co2. It’s a culmination of all the changes we have made to the planet in such a short period of time. We are killing entire rain forests and think it’s okay if we plant some trees to replace them, and entire ecosystem destroyed for profit. We are farming entire species to extinction but what’s the harm. The disappearance of species and forests that balance the ecosystem of the planet is part of what causes climate change, forget about your weak Co2 argument. The temperature has been flat? The fluctuations are getting so bad that there were days animals could not be outside where I live this winter. Solid walls of water destroying cities, huge clashes of hot and cold fronts destroying everything in their wake are becoming more and more common. Climate change is real and not up for debate. Whether or not our species should be saved is up for debate. What we should do about climate change is up for debate. Everything you said you are concerned about are the things that are contributing to climate change and yet here you are trying to deny it’s existence. I don’t know whether to dislike you or pity you.

Canuck

I got news for you… the environmental lobby is big business. They’re controlling you with media and junk science.

Man made climate change is bunk.

Canuck

You’re confused. The whole AGW movement and the current alarmist narrative is based on the idea that C02 emissions from industry are raising temperature.

And yes, the temperature trend has been basically flat since 1998.

“Climate change” is meaningless. It changes all the time.

None of the genuine environmental concerns I listed have anything to do with supposed temperature extremes.

We’re distracting ourselves from the genuine problems and what’s been done by the AGW lobbyists has grotesquely distorted the Scientific process and done huge damage to the credibility of objective research.

I’m not a Christian fundamentalist, I’m not an oil industry shill, I don’t watch Fox news. I’m educated, scientifically literate, love nature and I’m telling you this catastrophic man-made global warming theory is unproven, doesn’t match with observed temperature trends and is a waste of time.

Canuck

It’s in no way proven or demonstrated that we are affecting the climate.

Canuck

He has 5 kids too. His ‘climate tour’ a few years back had a bus. The bus was diesel powered. When asked why they couldn’t use an ethanol or some other ‘benevolent’ fuel the answer was that it would void the warranty on the bus.

So he wants us to pay the economic costs but it shouldn’t affect him. He’s a class A hypocrite.

I am NOT making this up.

Anonymous

Free market capitalism is the only thing creating wealth and surplus. If the government could somehow “set” the “value” of a dollar to be twice as high – the price of bread would drop to 1/2. In fact they’re doing the opposite, flooding us with printed money devaluing the dollar causing inflation which benefits … the government – in the form of higher capital gains taxes and people paying tax in higher brackets.

The industrial revolution was fueled by cheap energy out of the ground, (where most everything comes from..) and it doubled life expectancy. That enabled modern hospitals, (electric lights, elevators and HVAC systems), mass production of surgical supplies, antibiotics, vaccines and other medicines, rapid transportation for early intervention to save lives, a disease free supply of water, central heating in people’s homes, (less pneumonia which used to be the #1 killer), modern research facilities to create new life saving drugs, electric refrigerators to keep food from spoiling, waste treatment plants, mass production of means to control vermin that spread disease, easier living, etc…

If you don’t believe it then try living long in Afghanistan where they have few of the things I mentioned, (and the many of the ones they do have we did not have 150 years ago). Life expectancy there is just over one half of what it is here in the USA.

Not only do I believe in science, I’m actually scientific and require such silly things as empirical evidence and repeatable results. With AGW theory you have neither.

Every time the value of “carbon credits” drop – I cheer. They never had a connection to anything of value to begin with.

Wow? Wow what? I’m not denigrating Richard Turco but he gets most of his temperature and precipitation data from the same place as Richard Lindzen – the government.

Anonymous

Show me ONE such ‘proof’ by any of these “97%”? Not only is there no proof, the consensus constantly being mentioned is the equivalent of asking people what color the sky is. “Do human emissions have ANY affect on earth’s temperature?” Of course they do! Even I agree with that, almost every living thing emits CO2. Termites are huge emitters of methane and CO2, let’s kill all the termites!

But less than 1% of your 97% would agree that human emissions are responsible for more than 50% of the observed global temperature increase in the last 100 years. I would doubt that many more would even agree that all of CO2 in the air plays a major role in driving earth’s temperature because there simply is no evidence that it does.

Anonymous

“the Permian being the most devastating biological catastrophe.”

The Permian started out exactly with the same condition we have now with CO2 and temperature BOTH LOW at the same time! That relatively brief period over the last 500MY, about 45MY from the end of the Carboniferous into the start of the Permian, was when plants encountered CO2 starvation and temperatures much lower than those in which they had evolved. Warmer and more CO2 have always been better for life on earth.

Dave Moyer

Citations, please. From scientists, NOT economists and/or right wing commentators. I won’t be holding my breath.

Dave Moyer

You clearly don’t know how to read a graph, and you don’t understand statistics. Lemme ask you something – if your body temperature started to climb a degree a day, and on reaching 112 it started dropping a tenth of a degree a day for three days, would you say, “hey, folks, I’m fine!” Likely not. Firstly, temperature increase, like just about everything in nature, is NOT strictly linear, meaning that you’ve got to look at trends, not specific temperatures from cherry-picked dates. Secondly, even IF (and it’s a bloody big if) the warming trend has ceased, our temperature is now so much greater than the recent global averages that changes – unpleasant ones, I assure you, like that glacier collapse – will continue to occur. But hey, I’m sure you believe that the glacier collapse is bunk. Or that it won’t have any effect. Go ahead, keep believeing that – I don’t give a toss. But remember – facts are facts, whether you wanna believe ‘em or not.

Dave Moyer

If you think that David Suzuki is a member of the 1%, then your math skills are on par with your understanding of climatology. You also have utterly, and in quite spectacular fashion, missed the point.

http://GuardAmerican.com/ GuardAmerican

Shouldn’t Mr. Suzuki be rotting in the desert at Manzanar?

Anonymous

David Suzuki is very much in the 1% – actually he is likely safely in the 0.1% club, possibly the 0.01%.

Tell me what do you think the value of his multiple homes, including his house on the water in Point Grey, another property in Toronto, another one in Australia, and another one on Quadra Island, are worth?

Not proven. The consensus is a joke and was manufactured by a few vague questions.

But that’s enough to satisfy the people committed to the narrative.

There’s no proof of harmful global warming due to man-made emissions. NONE>

JC

I agree with the findings regarding CO2. However, if you read all the data put together (pro and con), it becomes fairly obvious that global warming is occurring, incrementally, and sporadically over time (as it has done in the past, only at a faster rate). The major difference now is that we, as a species, have added pollution, deforestation, acidic waterways, and other contributory “man caused” things to the mix.

Canuck

He’s just lying. The consensus is bogus and everybody knows it.

You never hear a climate scientist say that… just journalists parroting the company line and activists etc.

Dave Moyer

“Manufactured by a few vague questions”? Elucidate, please. Do tell us the nature of these “vague questions”, as you’re obviously far more of an expert on this subject than every climatologist in the world. Once again, I won’t hold my breath.

Dave Moyer

You clearly have never heard a climate scientist say ANYTHING. I have – I worked with them on a weekly basis for years. And yes, I have heard them say that there is indeed a concensus, and that it is indeed real. You’re going to have to better than just jumping up and down and screaming, “NO! I’m right and you’re wrong!” Because so far thats’s all I’ve seen you do.

Armadillo

I wouldn’t bother talking to Canuck or baron95 or Dances – if they won’t believe the scientists, why are they going to believe you or me? I do wish they would explain why they believe Big Oil over scientists. Big Oil obviously has everything to gain and much to lose if we move away from petroleum. I am not sure what they believe scientists have to gain from global warming. They believe that Big Oil has the interests of the human race at heart. oops, I’ve wet my pants laughing.

Bob

I’m just curious: why do you right wingers come to this site? No person who appreciates Bill Moyers believes anything you rant about, which means your presence here is useless, though perfectly within your right.

Canuck

To oppose the AGW alarmist agenda – what else?

Interesting – you see no point in debate, discourse, or argument ? You would prefer an alarmist echo chamber where alarmist orthodox dogma is absolute? I guess that’s the point with you guys. Total adherence to notion of a fixed idea.

For the record I did once believe there was a general consensus until somebody challenged me to look into it critically.

You should do the same. Peace.

Canuck

Scientists don’t generally issue silly statements about consensus. So you will have to pick between AGW zealots or their detractors. Read the source material anyway. Truth is truth. It explains quite clearly why the consensus is bogus.

And there are more scientists dissenting. Look it up.

Dave Moyer

Thanks, Armadillo – a little more reading here led me to the same conclusion. Waste of powder, both of them.

Bob

Ok. But you can see that no one here is listening to you. On the contrary, your rants are roundly rejected. Peer-reviewed scientific consensus is not dogma. It’s the result of scientific method. And what appears to you as absolutism is actually the agreement of 97% of climate scientists coming to the same conclusion on the basis of the data.

Your assertions are based on your politics, not on science. For the record, I am not a climate scientist. But the difference between you and me in this conversation is that I respect climate scientists, and you do not.

You have a right to express your argument, and you have. Your argument has been roundly rejected — on the basis of science.

Dave Moyer

No, they DON’T issue “silly” statements, about anything – but they do issue factual statements about consensus. I couldn’t care less about zealots – I listen to the climatologists themselves. You should give it a try. And if you’re convinced that the source material supposedly shows that the consensus is “bogus” – and that there are “more scientists dissenting” – then the onus is on you to provide links to that evidence. I have no interest in looking up ANYTHING based on your say so. Good evening to you.

Dave Moyer

Holy hannah.

Bob

I took the bait and went to this link you gave. It’s a right wing blog site run by 4 or 5 republican lawyers, not a scientist among them.

You see this is your problem here.

We who respect science argue science. You who are threatened by the implications of this science argue politics. Science vs politics. Not one of you right wingers presents a scientific argument to the contrary. Instead, you attack we who respect science. I’m sorry, that is not a credible approach. In order for you to be taken seriously, you need to “put up”.

Here is your challenge: present your peer-reviewed scientific counter argument. Remember, the “peer-reviewed” part of the equation is important because that is the beating heart of scientific method, ie, the tested and retested analysis of the data.

Canuck

There are no scientists touting the tired ‘consensus’ line. It is being peddled by hack journalists, politicians, AGW activists etc.

So cite me one credentialed scientist blathering about how “the Science is settled” and those who are skeptical are “Deniers”.

equilibrium, where heat inflow equals heat outflow. The equilibrium temperature is independent of how heat gets into the atmosphere. The equilibrium temperature will be the same with or without greenhouse gases. Equilibrium occurs regardless of greenhouse gases, because the planet is cooled by radiation which goes around the greenhouse gases. I cannot speak to pollution… De forestsation does cuase comcern…I believe we as humans should stop growing our population. In fact the 7 billion people is probably already to many people for the planet…There is no chance to save habitat or environment if we keep expanding population….by the way with 4 or 5 billion people the pollution would be a much smaller problem…

Dave Moyer

One only? Setting the bar rather low, aren’t you? Anyway, in addition to the link provided by Jon Thomas, here you go – http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024 And that’s by (count ‘em) nine authors – a lot more than your request for a mere one. So yes – real scientists DO “talk like that”, and DO endorse the idea of a 97% consensus. Sorry if that ruins your day. And now, I’m afraid, I have better things to do, and better people to talk to. It has become increasingly obvious that you’re not interested in an actual discussion, just as it’s quite clear that you have minimal interest in science, or facts, or even logic. Again, good evening to you.

Dave Moyer

Don’t mind at all, Jon – thanks much. I’m beginning to worry I might have overstepped a community rule or two in my reply, as it seems to be undergoing moderation – better go back and tone down the language somewhat.

And of course feel free to dismiss the content based entirely on the source. But read what they scientists there have to say.

Dave Moyer

Way to move the goalposts, Ace. And it’s more than a little amusing that, after you scoffing at James Hansen, the first name that show up on your link is Anthony “Heartland Institute” Watts – he of the much-vaunted Surface Stations project. Say goodnight, Canuck

JonThomas

You asked for one… now that one isn’t the one you wanted!?

Either live up to your own words or stop pretending you are an earnest person who isn’t out to troll and obfuscate.

If you were an earnest person, instead of attacking the scientist which stands in direct proof of the wrongness of your words, you would apologize and admit you were wrong.

You too aren’t worthy of a civil discussion.

Canuck

Nice ad hominem approach.

You’re completely insulated from any facts because you dismiss anybody who is not part of your narrative.

Read the CONTENT. It’s compiled form other sources.

charles

Bob, just trying to wake a few brain cells. I’d be the first ome on side with AGW if the math worked but all the math says otherwise!

besides carbon trading is a sham. taking our money giving it to third world dictators is not what i would call a solution even if the math showed co2 was the cause …which it doesnt.

Dave here is a few…Look at footmotes, many scientists and really listen to the whole video regards charles

Eng use math in real word… Engineering Earth’s thermostat with co2?

or actual trail by experiment ; Clip “On July 3, 2010, at 10:00 hr (UT), the proportion of water vapor in the atmosphere at the location 25º 48´ N lat. and 100 º 19’ W long., at an altitude of 513 m ASL, in San Nicolas de los Garza, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, was 5%.

The air temperature at an altitude of 1 m was 310.95 K and the temperature of the soil was 330 K. I chose this location, near my office, because it is an open field, far enough from the city and its urban effects.”

Oh, do tell me more about ad hominem approaches – coming from the guy who calles James Hansen a “total loon”. You’ve made it very clear that there’s no point in trying to have a discussion with you – as is typical of folks like you, you keep moving the goalposts as soon as one of your arguments is shot down. As I said, I’ve better things to do with better people. You’re a waste of time, and effort. Oh, and I’ve read the content, by the way. Obviously our reading comprehension skills are vastly different.

Dave Moyer

I’d posted a response to this earlier, but it seems to have been removed, so I’ll have to do this from memory. Forbes magazine calculated last year that someone would have to have an annual income of about $400,000 to make it into the US 1% (sorry, I couldn’t find figures for Canada), or have several million dollars in liquid assets. Hint – real estate is not a “liquid asset”. Now, if you have any evidence that Dr. Suzuki is pulling in $400,000US annually, I’d like to see it. That and any evidence of his net worth. Oh, and even The Sun doesn’t mention anything about him having property in Australia, so you’re clearly an expert on Suzuki’s holdings – it oughta be easy for you to provide the numbers that’ll clinch your contention. And you’ve still missed the point.

Bob

The facts you seek are compiled in the latest IPCC report. Look it up.

The “gradual warming trend” that you finally acknowledge took off about 150 years ago when industrialization intensified. It’s been spiking ever since.

Temperature rise occurring today is rapidly spiking precisely because the amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere is happening faster than photosynthesis can process it. That CO2’s gotta go somewhere, and where its going is the atmosphere and the oceans, which acidifies the oceans, kills ocean life, melts glaciers, raises sea levels.

We don’t adapt to rapid, cascading ecological events like this. Just ask the dinosaurs.

Bob

The Jurassic period is sandwiched in between the Triassic and Cretaceous periods, both of which ended with climate catastrophes. But while the Triassic extinction was one of the four mass extinctions caused by global warming and drastically increased CO2 levels (according to fossil evidence), the Cretaceous (aka “K-T”) extinction was caused by sudden massive cooling as a result of an asteroid collision. So the Jurassic period was one of the recovery periods following a mass extinction and preceding another one.

CO2 is not bad for life unless and until the level exceeds the biosphere’s ability to process it, as is happening right this minute due to human industrial activity.

Period.

Anonymous

You speak of the Jurassic as though it was a mayonaise sandwich – life flourished for over 80 million years with both HIGH temperature and HIGH CO2! You don’t actually know what the primary cause of the extinctions were but temperature and CO2 are not on anyone’s list as “causes”. CO2 back then was between 1000 to 3000 PPM with no indication that it had any affect on temperature at all.

The fact that temperature DROPPED with so much more CO2 in the air at the end of the Jurassic invalidates your pompous idea altogether and indicates that something ELSE happened such as an asteroid hit or massive volcanism event.

Anonymous

Rubbish. Government spends over 2.5 BILLION dollars per year to shove this hoax down our throats. How much does “big oil” spend to counter it? Virtually ZERO! They are invested in the hoax as well because it LIMITS supply allowing them to raise prices earning them a higher profit with an INELASTIC commodity. The government gets 40% of that profit.

That plus many big oil companies like BP, Exxon and Shell are all cashing in on the tax cuts/subsidies for ‘green’ energy research and bio-fuels – why would they cut their throats on that?

Anonymous

Describe EXACTLY what this “consensus” actually is? Even the the most recent IPCC AR5 REDUCED its prior assessment on warmer temperature causing catastrophic weather – they now say they have LOW CONFIDENCE that global warming increases storm intensity or strength. They admit what we all know, that there is simply no historical evidence to support the idea.

Kate

Ron, you nailed it, with me particularly concerned, as a journalist, with the recent trend of big business, which own the media, turning it into a propaganda tool, especially the “evening news.” As an illustration, not one American in a million is aware that we are the world’s 3rd most populated nation and in many recent years, FUELED HALF OF ALL GROWTH ON THE PLANET (82 percent immigration, 18 percent births which, despite media depictions will continue to fuel growth for decades). Key is that these are often people moving from low-carbon nations to our high-carbon nation, part of what President Clinton’s Council on Sustainability urged that immigration be kept low enough NOT to fuel population growth, advice ignored partly due to big businesses’ belief that a high growth rate is essential. I agree with Kenneth Boulding from the Kennedy years, anyone who believes you can have infinite growth on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist. We need a steady-state economy and a non-growing population, just as John Locke and other economists of that past said must happen after a time of initial growth!

Undecided

I wish Bill Moyers probed his guests for more facts. It seems like many of his guests give a lot of general opinions without providing many specific facts to make their argument. I feel like his show doesn’t give much information that can be used to debate the issues with those of an opposing viewpoint, or to convince a viewer who is unsure.

I don’t think Moyers asked David Suzuki for any facts or details about climate change that can be used to debate anyone who questions it.

Anonymous

Your post is bunk. And the same may be said for the denialism of “Gary Novak”.

Canuck

You really don’t want to get your facts from an IPCC report. That’s a political organization not a scientific one.

The gradual increase started after the Little Ice Age before Mann cooked the data to eliminate the variation of the Midievel Warm period and the Little Ice age. The warming PREDATES industrial emissions by centuries

Where is the temperature rise spiking today? It’s been flat for 17 years?

So now because of that, you guys are claiming that its suddenly started hiding in the ocean.

Two things… it takes thousands of times longer to warm the ocean than the atmosphere… and – if we’ve been inundated with ‘Hockey Stick’ graphs showing massive and sudden spikes in surface temp over the last 30 years…. why all of a sudden now is the heat buried in the ocean?

It wasn’t before… just now – which conveniently gets around the fact that the surface temps have stabilized.

Very convenient indeed.

Canuck

All you do is cite the same 97% consensus over and over again.

It’s a substitute for facts or rational argument.

Mike435

Threatening to have your political opponents arrested, even in jest, shows very poor judgement. Expose the idiocy and the lies, but remember we have to win over people who look up to conservative leaders.

Mike435

Mr. Moyers, do a show interviewing conservatives who respect the science and favor action on climate change.

Look up: Energy and Enterprise & ConservAmerica for examples.

Mike435

Suzuki quotes Nordhaus, but get it wrong. Google: NPR Economist Says Best Climate Fix A Tough Sell, But Worth It

Anonymous

No, you’re not. You’re worried about arguing a point that is as uninformed and stupid as arguing about where the sun goes at night. You can try to debunk science all you want, but climate change is real, and Jesus didn’t ride a dinosaur,

JonThomas

I can’t speak for Mr. Moyers or the Moyers & Company show, but I have noticed that since the show went to the 1/2 hour format, the website team has been working, more than ever, to provide background information and support for the show.

At the end of each episode, Mr. Moyers points his audience here to the website where we can “join the conversation.”

Each week, leading up to the Friday episode, it seems approx. 3-5 articles are published to provide exactly the type of support you mention in your comment.

I’m very informed on these matters and the fact that you have no answer other than to post belligerent replies and false equivocations is just an indicator that you’re intellectually bankrupt and incapable of addressing valid points.

JC

..I guess you’re making a validation of the Malthusian effect where; where, if population grows exponentially and food grows arithmetically, the ultimate results will encourage disease, famine, pestilence, and an end to civilization, eventually.

Anonymous

Right. Parroting Tea Party talking points and arguing with scientists does not make you informed. Neither does questioning the intellectual ability of someone who lets the people who study these things for a living inform me. Perhaps you can explain how having and opinion that differs with 97% of climate scientists carries any intellectual weight. You are not informed on this subject. You are just dressing denials and propaganda up in words you think make you sound smart.

Alias Earthling

From your adjective “man-made,” should we infer that you recognize climate change, but simply deny its true explanation? If so, fine. Never the less, even by your unenlightened lights, aren’t we long overdue to begin addressing climate change?

Alias Earthling

What did he blow?

Anonymous

Who is joking?

The U.S. food production regions are reverting to desert.

As this continues, Public execution of the Republican traitors will begin.

Bob

Charles, your references are not vetted, nor are they persuasive to 97% of climatologists. These references are dismissed.

It occurs to me that you just don’t get it: this issue is settled (by a peer-reviewed consensus of climate scientists). The debate is over.

Anthropogenic atmospheric deterioration is real and life threatening according to an overwhelming majority of climatologists. It’s done. It’s over. It’s settled.

Bob

It occurs to me that you just don’t get it: this issue is settled (by a peer-reviewed consensus of climate scientists). The debate is over.

Anthropogenic atmospheric deterioration is real and life threatening according to an overwhelming majority of climatologists. It’s done. It’s over. It’s settled.

Bob

It occurs to me that you just don’t get it: this issue is settled (by a peer-reviewed consensus of climate scientists). The debate is over.

Anthropogenic atmospheric deterioration is real and life threatening according to an overwhelming majority of climatologists. It’s done. It’s over. It’s settled.

Bob

Not a mayonnaise sandwich, a sediment sandwich. And yes, the Jurassic epoch is sandwiched in between the Triassic and Cretaceous epochs.

The most likely cause of all the death at the end of the Triassic extinction is the eruption of the Central Atlantic magmatic province. Two million cubic km of lava spilled out over a few hundred years… but worse, 2 quadrillion kg of sulfur was released along with twice as much C02.

The issue is settled. The debate is over. You lost.

Anonymous

You have provided zero to prove your theory that global warming caused extinctions.

charles

NASA Global Warming Stance Blasted By 49 Astronauts, Scientists Who Once Worked At Agency

The Huffington Post | By David Freeman

Posted: 04/11/2012 1:07 pm Updated: 04/12/2012 12:04

Undecided

Thanks, Jon. I wish there was more information like that presented on the show.

charles

Written by John O’Sullivan

2014 sees a rise in the number of scientists supportive of the idea of an Electric Universe, a concept that flies in the face of conventional cosmology. Piers Corbyn, world leader in long range weather forecasting, was one of an array of impressive speakers at the EU2014 Electric Universe Conference, New Mexico, helping generate the sparks.

Vera Gottlieb

We must remember every day that everything on this planet – human, animal or plant, is inter-connected and one can’t do without the other. I am not a religious person but I do believe that we must respect Mother Nature if life is to survive. And foremost, we must stop fiddling with nature, destroying it, for the financial benefit of very few.

Anonymous

Sure the number of papers refuting AGW is low because climate scientists with the opposing view get their papers REJECTED 100 X more than AGW nuts!

Anonymous

What melted 3 mile thick solid ice just 18,000 years ago?? CO2 levels 18,000 years ago were lower than today, yet the all that ice (15,000 feet thick) melted and disappeared. Now that’s real climate change. I would Iike just one AGW Nutbag to explain that away.

Anonymous

What melted 3 miles thick ice buried over North America in just 18,000 years?

Anonymous

Bill Moyers should be fired. I will never give money to PBS

Canuck

How petulant you sound.

It is FAR from settled. And people are starting to realize it. The 97% consensus is bogus. Real scientists don’t talk like that. Ideologues and activists talk like that.

moderator

Canuck and Bob

Time to agree to disagree. Please move on without further comment.

Moderator @ Moyers

moderator

Bob and Canuck

Time to agree to disagree. Please move on without further comment.

Moderator @ Moyers

Anonymous

You present a valid point. Not to make excuses but sometimes, the rescuer forgoes politeness and quickly reacts to extricate the individual from danger. On the other hand, the situation may only require and out reaching hand and the words “take my hand and I’ll lead us out from danger.”

Anonymous

In Reply to: “The WH climate budget is now $2.5 billion per year. Whose money is driving this hoax?” Some say Climate Change it just about money; and yes, much about money – the US and China are prime examples of this as China has replicated US industrial boom since US manufacturing pushed jobs offshore over issues of healthcare, salary/benefits and higher profits (and the bonus of tax-free offshore accounts – currently totaling nearly $2 Trillion)

Now let’s take that $2 Trillion and deduct a reasonable corporate tax base of 20% ‘just for example’ (keeping in mind avg. corp. and ‘The One Percent Class’ paid 0-13% and avg. individual taxpayer is 28-32 % of income) you get $400 Billion in cheated tax losses that should have went to US public programs.

Now why should corp. pay tax on offshore income? Because these are US ‘based’ corp. that are receiving Fed tax loopholes & handouts in subsidies which are paid out of the revenue collected by taxation of the working class, then add in the fact that Congress always cuts pubic social programs when making budget cuts. Right there, in this paragraph, the real problem is revealed. Mean while; the old business model tycoons not only, not wish to change but have refuse to release control over the markets by resorting to political sabotage, blocking any real progress in a green direction out of the greed. Yes; the powerful bought their way into meddling with America’s ingredients to suit themselves and when the recipe failed the public (and our children) are left as the big loser.

Capitalism is what produces a SURPLUS by means of mass production and provides the most product for the LOWEST price thus benefiting the greatest number of people. No other socioeconomic system can compare to that besides maybe slavery.

http://wp.elleseemarz.net/ Ellemarz

No, and why would you assume so? I recall hearing multiple times on the news and reading in the papers that it would take centuries for life to return. I even recall thinking at the time that their claim seemed a bit odd. The media also expressed surprise that when things started to grow and critters began to move in that it was faster than they had anticipated. My husband was also from the same area I lived, and he remembers this, also. We lived only about 40 miles from St. Helens, we got it all. Would you like to question my veracity about this as well?

http://haywoodwhy.blogspot.com/anything William W Haywood

What he says is true. It will take each and every one of to bring Gaia back to full health so that humanity can live side by side with the rest of life we have not destroyed.

Anonymous

Your own post indicates there is no data being withheld other than names of specific participants. Sounds like Brandon’s trying to create a story.

Richard Tol, who has been a major whiner about the Cook study just testified before the US Congress “The consensus is of course in the high nineties.” So maybe he thinks it should be 98% (95 or 96 isn’t the high nineties.

He then added, “I mean it’s pretty clear that most of the science agrees that climate change is real and most likely human-made”

Invasive Evasion

Using quotes out of context to try to make it seem that someone said the opposite of what they actually said can be an effective technique of lying. Trying to do it on the same webpage containing the source material is foolish.

Falsely representing the message of a good and wise man like Suzuki (regardless of how silly the attempt) is reprehensible.

Invasive Evasion

The big money is coming from the fossil fuel industry, which has billions of dollars of profit incentive to convince people like yourself that global warming is a hoax. The environmental argument is based on values extending beyond profit. That’s one of the points Suzuki made.

Invasive Evasion

Devoting your life to studying science and using your knowledge to better humanity is a wonderful kind of elitism. Of course the planet has constantly changed throughout its history. The relevant question is, what effect does a particular change have on human civilization. Global warming is a harmful change we have caused for ourselves. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of an investment. The pollution released by Suzuki is a justified and miniscule price to pay in advocating for a greater good. Think of it as a tiny price to pay for a huge investment in our future.

David P.

I thought we were making progress until David didn’t go any further with his story about the lumberjacks saying that there wouldn’t be any lumber in the future. The issue at that point had been clarified. David’s idea that he only needs to “get the word out” to people about the harm that is being done was exposed as a lie: People already know. He should have grappled with that realization, but instead he walked away from it.

Anonymous

The information you seek can easily be found on NASA, NOAA and the American Physics Association web sites among others. This interview was on the efforts of the fossil fuel industry and their shills to create fear, uncertainty and doubt for short term profit and political power. All one needs to do is look at the current efforts of the Harper government in Canada and the Bushes, and Reagan efforts to suppress science in the U.S. to see what is going on. The quotes from Republican politicians at the beginning of the show are priceless. The fact that so many Americans don’t recognize the idiocy of their statements is the biggest indication of the failure of our educational system.

Anonymous

Perhaps you could share the expertise you have for being able to identify junk science.

Anonymous

One does a disservice to themselves and their argument by citing obscure web sites. One only needs to go to the NASA, NOAA and American Physics Association web sites for authoritative information.

Canuck

Simple critical thinking skills and a rudimentary understanding of what the scientific method actually is should suffice.

And CHECKING facts

Canuck

Climate has been warming for centuries. We would do better to adapt than think we can engineer the climate.

Our effect is likely small contributing factor.

Anonymous

Are you trying to build up your credibility on AGW by acknowledging all these other environmental problems? Given your other statements you just appear to be posing. A sad situation to be in,

Anonymous

Everyone who isn’t a right wing denier of AGW should be living naked under a bridge. Got it. Now try saying something intelligent about AGW.

Anonymous

Have you actually read what Freeman Dyson has said, he has stated that raising the living standards of the Chinese, Indians and third world peoples in the short term is more important than environmental damage in the long term to him. He also imagines we can genetically engineer super trees to soak up the extra CO2 if we need to. Of course he doesn’t address whether such imaginary trees would be suitable replacements for the uses we make of the trees already gracing our planet. He also ignores the danger of a global monoculture. Check out the American Elm as one example of what can happen.

You worry about the “agenda” of climate scientists, yet ignore the clearly stated agenda of a person who wants to ignore the problem because of short term economic and social considerations.

Anonymous

You have demonstrated you do not understand the physics. Your lack of embarrassment at showing your ignorance indicates the level of your target audience.

Anonymous

Everyone who isn’t a right wing denier should live naked under a bridge. Got it. Not quite as blatant as suggesting people concerned about rising CO2 levels should stop breathing, but close. Have you considered applying for a job with the Heartland Institute? I guess you are just the sort they are looking for. But be warned, competition is tough for those spots.

Canuck

No, you are typical of the AGW zealots.. everything is a single issue for you and you have no argument but ad hominem attacks on those who might disagree.

You are incapable of addressing the debate logically… and that’s what this is. A debate.

People who say “the science is settled” are ideologues who are not interested in real science.

And yes, I’m concerned that these other more pressing and acute environmental issue are getting ignored because of the agenda of those pushing “Climate Change” which is supposedly attributable to man-made global warming.

You want to dismiss me as anti-Science and somehow not concerned about our environment? Why wouldn’t I be?

Anonymous

If you look at similar undisturbed areas and compare them to the current state of Mt. Saint Helens, you will see it has a long way to go.

Undecided

It’s been a while since I watched the show. I just remember that I didn’t think Suzuki provided many facts to back up his opinions.

I admit don’t understand the science that well. The conservative criticism of climate change does cast some doubt in my mind. I would like to hear more direct rebuttal of their arguments.

HA HA – he has a double lot 12 million dollar house in Kits and owns a Porsche.

guy

I am attacking David Suzuki because I believe he is correct about climate change (say a 80% chance). Since he is a celebrity that tells everyone else to change their lifestyle to protect the earth, he needs to as well otherwise people won’t take the issue seriously.